Willie

by Willie Nelson

  While Larry is still grinning and talking and picking up his tee, Lee will stick his own ball on a peg and say, “That wasn’t too shabby for an old man, Traloo, but you never had a dream that you could hit it up with me. I believe I’ll just take aim on this little darling and throw it over the top of those three trees on the right and bring it to a stop at the far edge of the fairway on that little patch of grass because it’s in the shade . . .”

  Somewhere toward the end of this speech, you will hear the loud crack of Lee’s metal driver and see the ball taking off and heading toward the spot where Lee, a master of the game, had seen the ball landing in his creative imagination. In golf you call it “visualization.” It’s amazing how often visualization works when you can remember to do it. The really good players never forget it.

  But the rest of us are liable to get so wrapped up in how we grip the club and how we hold our feet and what to turn first—our hips or our shoulders—that we neglect the vital aspect of creating a mental picture of our ball hitting its target. It’s a funny thing about golf. I use visualization in playing music. My creative imagination prints a picture in my mind of where a tune is going, and it goes there. But I can walk onto a golf course intending to visualize a 300-yard drive down the middle, and so many things go through my head—Keep your eyes on the back of the ball and don’t move your head until the ball is gone, and keep your grip real light, like you’re holding a tube of toothpaste with the cap off. Make a full shoulder turn but don’t forget to turn your hips and get that left knee behind the ball and that left heel off the ground. On the way back down, don’t grab the club with your right hand and throw your right shoulder and arm at the ball or you’ll come over the top and hit something ugly. Start your downswing with your left knee, plant that left heel and turn your hips toward the direction of the shot and keep your head still. Don’t let your shoulders pass your chin until the ball is gone past your left ear. Make a good swing, inside out, full extension of the arms, a big arc, don’t try to bash the ball, just swing and the club will do the work. And don’t forget to fucking relax!

  All this mental instruction has probably taken about twenty seconds, by which time the swing takes place and there’s nothing you can do about it. You’ve also probably lost sight of your target if you ever had one. But every now and then all this action comes together just right and you hit a golf shot that is so beautiful and so graceful that you wouldn’t trade it for an orgasm. With a really good swing, something magical happens. It gives you a high unlike anything else. Then one good swing will follow another until you start believing this game is easy. That’s when you remember that you haven’t been thinking about all your tips, so you review your style to see you’re still doing everything right—then it all falls apart. What had been so fluid and easy a few minutes ago has once again become almost impossible. Where your club had felt like a feather a minute ago, it now feels like a shovel. And then, in a sudden revelation, you will see the line unfold before you like a golden path and one-hand a putt thirty feet into the cup to win the Pedernales Scramble match with your pardner, and golf has dug the hook deeper into you.

  Golf is not only a game, it is an addiction. You cannot explain the addiction of golf to someone who does not play golf. I have tried, but they simply cannot understand. These are wonderful people I am talking about, too, excellent people in all other ways. People like my wife Connie. It is, in fact, fair to say golf has caused me a great amount of marital discord. Oh yes, that is certainly true.

  Since getting my own golf course, I have had a hard time finding an excuse why I can’t play golf every day when I am in Austin. I look upon it as going to the dogs with dignity.

  Let’s return again to the fourth hole, where I started telling this story.

  By now the rest of us—this day it was a movie director named Doug Holloway and Reverend Gerald Mann, pastor of the River Bend Baptist Church, and I think the Coach and Bud Shrake might have been a team that day—go down to where Trader has decided to hit a 3-iron for his second shot to the par five. Trader says, “Well, I don’t know what to tell you boys except I been practicing this shot for thirty-seven years. Look at what I lay on this little fucker.” He knocks it on the green. To me Larry says, “Sorry, pardner, I left it about ten feet above the hole. Must of caught it thin.”

  We move on up to Trevino’s ball. He has hit it twenty yards past Larry.

  “How long until you turn fifty?” Larry says to Lee, admiring the drive.

  “One year, eight months, two weeks, one day, and twenty minutes,” Lee grins. “Man, I can’t wait. I’ll be like Jesse James.”

  “You mean crooked and dead?” I say.

  It was a joke, of course. We were talking about Lee joining the PGA Seniors Tour when he turns fifty. But the word “dead” sets him off.

  “Hey, dead ain’t bad, let me tell you,” Lee says seriously. “I mean, I believe in reincarnation, anyway. But when I got killed by lightning I realized the passage from this life is a tremendous pleasure.” Lee was struck by lightning at a tournament a few years ago. “I was sitting under a tree when the lightning hit. It bolted my arms and legs out stiff, jerked me off the ground, and killed me. I knew I was dead. There was no pain. Everything turned a warm gentle orange color. I saw my mama, who had been dead for years. I saw other people from my life. It was a newsreel like you’ve read about—my life passing before my eyes. But it was so pleasant, so wonderful, I felt great. I thought, boy, this dying is really fun. It’s when I woke up in the hospital badly burned and in pain that I knew I had come back to life again for some reason.”

  “Sounds like you kind of enjoyed being dead,” said Preacher Mann.

  “Enjoyed it! Preacher, it was great. There’s no reason to fear death. Shit, I wish I was dead right this minute.”

  There’s really nothing funny about the game of golf itself, but the guys who play it make it the funniest game in the world. The more seriously we take it, the funnier it becomes.

  Guys are always talking to themselves on the golf course. It should be to give themselves positive reinforcement, but usually it is to remind themselves how stupid they are. A negative thought will destroy a golf shot before you ever take your clubs out of the bag.

  I’ve noticed two types of regulars at the Pedernales—those who talk to themselves, and those who talk to their golf ball.

  Steve Fromholz keeps up a running monologue to himself all the way around. Steve is liable to hit a great shot and follow it with a horrible shot. He will be saying, “Steve, you ought to take this ball out of service for disreputable appearance, but give it one more chance to stay on the playing squad. Just put a smooth swing on it . . . There, you see how easy it is? Steve, you’re great, you’re a natural . . .” Then he tops one. “You moron! You fool! You idiot! How the hell could you make such a grotesque swing? You’re the worst fucking player I ever played with, you asshole!”

  Johnny Gimble, on the other hand, talks mostly to his golf ball.

  Johnny will tee up the ball and then get down on his knees and stare at it. “All right, ball,” he will say, “now get legs, go, get up there and turn over, and then hit and stop and back up. Whoa! You got it? I’d better not have to tell you again.”

  Gimble never seems to be as hard on himself as he is on the ball when the shot doesn’t turn out right. His swing, Johnny says, is past worrying about. “Some people say their golf game comes and goes,” he says. “Mine went and stayed.”

  I’ll always remember one piece of advice Johnny gave me about my golf swing.

  “Willie,” he said, “I believe your problem is that you lunge just before you lurch.”

  There is a false story that has been widely printed about golf at the Pedernales. I am supposed to have said, “Par at my golf course is whatever I say it is. Today I made a fourteen on the first hole and it turned out to be a birdie.”

  Maybe I did say that someplace, but it was a joke. For one thing, anybody who has played golf with me know
s I have never made a 14 on a hole. My golf ball is in my pocket long before my score would add up that high. And we do take the game seriously at the Pedernales. One of the great things about golf is excuses don’t count, but foul balls do. It don’t matter how you make the par, it goes on the card as a par. And it don’t matter if the other guy hit better-looking shots but made a bogey, it still goes on the card as a bogey. In other words, it’s not how but how many. You never know what might happen. When you add up the strokes, a 4-foot putt counts the same as a 300-yard drive.

  A lot of people who’ve heard about our golf at the Pedernales think we kick our balls out from behind trees—the famous Pedernales Stroll—and violate all kinds of rules of the game, but this is a large exaggeration.

  Maybe the false stories started with what we printed on our Pedernales Country Club scorecard:

  LOCAL RULES AND ETIQUETTE

  • When another is shooting, no player should talk, whistle, hum, clink coins, or pass gas.

  • Don’t play until group in front is out of way.

  • Excessive displays of affection are discouraged. Violators must replace divots and will be penalized five strokes.

  • Replace divots, smooth fingerprints in bunkers, brush backtrail with branches, park car under brush, and have the office tell your spouse you’re in conference.

  • Let faster groups play through.

  • On the putting green, don’t step on another’s line.

  • “Freebies” are not recommended for players with short putts.

  • No more than twelve in your foursome.

  • Gambling is forbidden of course unless you’re stuck or you need a legal deduction for charitable or educational expenses.

  • All carts are not allowed within 20 feet of traps or aprons surrounding greens.

  • No bikinis, mini-skirts, skimpy see-throughs, or sexually exploitative attire allowed. Except on women.

  • Please leave course in the condition in which you’d like to be found.

  Also the telephone never rings out on the golf course.

  The Chorus

  DON CHERRY

  I’ve played golf with Willie for years. During a game in Vegas, I had to leave the group at the ninth hole for an appointment with my psychiatrist. Golf will make you nuts, but so will women. I was romancing a lady and we weren’t getting along and she thought this psychiatrist could make me understand her line of thinking. Instead, it made me really hot.

  I rushed back to the game as they approached the fourteenth tee. I was steaming. I placed my ball on a peg, glared at it, gritted my teeth and said, “You see this ball? I wish it was her head.”

  Then I nailed one of the longest drives I ever hit in my life.

  Willie teed up his ball, took a mighty swing, and hit it dead solid perfect, right on the sweet spot, bashed it way down the middle.

  He grinned at me and said, “I never liked the bitch, either.”

  TIM O’CONNOR

  In 1971 I was working the register at my club, Castle Creek, in Austin, when this fellow walked up and said, “I understand your name is Tim O’Connor.”

  I said it was. He said, “I’m Willie Nelson.” I recognized him. He said, “I’d like to play your joint.”

  I grabbed a bottle of whiskey and we went to my office and got drunk and became friends. Willie played Castle Creek for seven nights.

  Several months later I went on a tour with Willie. My job was chief cook and bottle washer. I drove the Bronco that hauled our gear. It’s hard to believe now, but all the band stuff would fit in one Bronco. I took the responsibility for getting a good sound system and buying Bobbie her own piano and hiring somebody to advance the gigs, which amounted mostly to calling ahead to make sure we had more than one microphone waiting.

  We had our share of hairy gigs. One night at Gilley’s, for example, the audience literally stole our show. There were 3,000 cowboys in Gilley’s that night, and they got so rowdy they swarmed all over the stage. They were kicking and punching each other and crashing into us. The most I could do was grab Willie’s guitar and run. Willie and I escaped out the back door, into the pouring rain, and jumped into his old red Mercedes. On our way to the Holiday Inn I was cussing and raising hell.

  I said, “What the hell do you want me to be? God damn it, I can’t do my job. This is ridiculous.”

  Just a smartass twenty-seven-year-old kid mouthing off. But Willie stopped the car and we got out in the pelting rain. I was steaming mad, ready to fight. As Willie looked at me his eyes went from a real chestnut brown to very dark black. I was hoping he’d hit me with a beer bottle, anything to set me off, because I was a violent type in those days.

  Willie looked at me hard and said, “There’s three things I never want you to be.”

  I said, “What the hell is that?”

  Willie said, “I never want you to be cold, wet, or hungry.”

  He turned and walked through the rain into the hotel. Shit, I thought, I’ll follow this guy anyplace.

  Our third annual July 4th Picnic at College Station, Texas, in 1974. It attracted over 150,000 people through the weekend.

  With Robert Redford on the set of The Electric Horseman, my first movie role. I had the best line in the whole movie.

  I got to play the lead in Barbarosa. That’s Gary Busey with me at gunpoint.

  They made a movie from my album Red-Headed Stranger with Katherine Ross and Morgan Fairchild as the two beautiful leading ladies. That’s my grandson, Bryan Fowler.

  In 1978 I played at the White House for Mrs. Carter, who brought my daughters Paula and Amy onstage.

  President Carter sang a few bars with me during a Democratic fundraiser in 1980.

  Everywhere I went during our tour of Japan, I was surrounded by reporters and their cameras.

  Prince Charles and Walter Cronkite stopped backstage at a concern in Austin.

  In 1987 Frank Sinatra and I did a public service spot together.

  Escorting Morgan Fairchild to the opening of Red-Headed Stranger.

  In 1979 Dolly Parton presented me with the Country Music Association’s award for Entertainer of the Year.

  Kris Kristofferson has been a good buddy for many years.

  Minnie Pearl, Ray Charles, and I were among the performers celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Country Music Association in 1983.

  With Don Johnson while shooting an episode of “Miami Vice.”

  I had a nice old chat with “Church Lady” when I was on “Saturday Night Live.”

  Bee Spears.

  Paul English on drums.

  Jody Payne.

  Mickey Raphael onstage at the 1979 July 4th Picnic.

  In 1980 we ran the first annual Willie Nelson Distance Classic in Austin and over 1000 runners competed.

  Getting set to tee off at my Pedernales Recording Studio and Country Club, in Austin.

  Lana signs my cast while I feed my granddaughter Rachel.

  I decided to do the Farm Aid concert in 1985 after touring the Midwest on Honeysuckle Rose and hearing the bad problems farmers were having all over.

  Connie helps me relax while setting up for a concert.

  Connie, Paula, Amy, and I take some time out.

  At Lana’s wedding in 1987. Martha and I dressed to the nines for our daughters wedding.

  Billy, Martha, and me when Billy got married in 1983.

  The band gets ready to record another album. Jody Payne, Paul English, Mickey Raphael, Grady Martin, Bee Spears, and Larry Greenhill.

  My home on the range. This is a picture of the main room at my cabin in Austin.

  Shortly later, Willie fired me. “I don’t think you fit in with us right now,” he said. “You want to do things your own way, and that’s not how we’re going to do them at this time.”

  I was heartbroken. But it was only Willie saying, “Goodbye for a while. We don’t need what you do, but we’ll figure out something else.”

  The next major project I worked on for him was
the 1976 three-day Fourth of July Picnic at College Station, Bryan, Texas, where we had to confront one of the promoters with guns in our hands to collect the $10,000 he owed Leon Russell. I worked three months on the picnic, and at the end the promoter gave me fifty $1 bills and said, “I hope your Thunderbird car burns regular gas. Take this fifty dollars and get your ass out of Brazos County and never come back.” Since the promoter was also an elected official, I took him seriously and moved to Houston and worked as a bouncer at Liberty Hall.

  I drifted back to Austin and was running a club when Willie signed a new recording deal with CBS records. One night CBS had a sound truck parked in front of my club, taping a live album. Three guys got into a beef on the sidewalk. One of them had pulled a knife. I went outside with my pistol to smooth them down. The guy with the knife was very belligerent and menacing. I thought I’d pop a cap over his head, maybe put a crease in his skull to remind him to show better manners. Bam! I shot at him, but the guy leaped aside.